Leave it to New York’s premier provocateurs to show their latest fall collection in an abandoned store in midtown Manhattan. The dated, neglected retail space, patchy carpet and all, proved to be the perfect foil for Eckhaus Latta’s dowdy-cum-avant-garde designs. The ApparelMagic clients, a design duo of Mike Eckhaus and Zoe Latta, have been upending the trend-driven fashion landscape with their own brand of cerebral cool, but this collection shows that they are ready for the big leagues.
Fabricating much of the clothing on display in shiny outerwear nylon, the designers took on classic American sportswear in the most underground of ways. The first model out wore a jacket in fleece tie-dyed like a microbial culture and a skirt that could button away from midi to mini at a moment’s notice. Another innovative look included felt leggings that below the knee were sliced and diced into pointe shoe ribbons.
In keeping with the label’s progressive slant, the show was often androgynous, with menswear taking cues from women in the knitwear department, and both genders wearing mannish, square-shouldered blazers. One male model wore a head-to-toe safety orange number, as if to announce: “This is Eckhaus Latta, and this is the face of fashion today.”
